Research On Agent-Based Modeling And Simulation Application For Autonomic Multi-Satellite Systems

Along with the development of several modern sciences and technologies of spaceflight whose essential technology is on small satellites, the spaceflight industry has experienced an ongoing revolution when the Autonomic Multi-Satellite System (AMSS) brings some challenges while granting people so many conveniences. The AMSS can be viewed as a type of Complex Adaptive System (CAS) with both the physical and the logical attributes, and the CAS cannot be analyzed and evaluated on the basis of the traditional analytical techniques or the common simulation technologies, it is therefore new methodologies should be expected. Thus, a set of integral methodologies with their essential points on Agent-Based Modeling and Simulation (ABMS) is proposed in this dissertation so as to solve the research issues on Modeling and Simulation (M&S) applications and the effectiveness evaluation for AMSSs, with their main contents provide in this dissertation as follows:(1) Viewing from the two main current directions of the AMSS, on distribution and autonomicity, many achievements of recent studies on ABMS have been applied and synthetized, the basic concept, theory and methodology of the ABMS is summarized in detail and the necessity and the feasibility of studying AMSS by using ABMS with the fundamental strategy for implementation are demonstrated.(2) Since ABMS comes from simulations in the fields of bioecology and social science, so there is some demerits on the analytical and describing abilities of the dynamic systems whose main model is the differential or difference equation. Aiming at such demerits, another advanced method on M&S, i.e. the Combined Discrete-Continuous Simulation (CDCS) is chosen to integrate with the ABMS in this dissertation, and based on which a new M&S methodology, named Agent-Based CDCS (ABCDCS) is proposed here, followed by the detailed and completed analysis on the behavior logic of agents in ABCDCS.(3) Autonomicity of AMSSs is the necessary condition of using ABMS to do research. Therefore, autonomy and autonomicity of AMSSs are studied in details and a set of architectures of AMSSs to implement autonomicity is built, then the strategy and techniques to achieve autonomicity are presented; technologies for realizing autonomicity are introduced, and an example is formed to show how AMSSs can achieve autonomicity.(4) Based on the study on autonomicity of AMSSs, functional-behavioral attributes of AMSSs are analyzed, and a type of intelligent model, Extended Belief-Desire-Intention (E-BDI) which is suitable for AMSSs is presented. By using the component as the basic model unit, meta-agents of the subsystems of a satellite are built, and with the adhesion these meta-agents aggregates into an agent model of satellite, furthermore, meta-agent of ground system is built too. Then on the basis of this agents' system of a satellite, extensions for both distribution and autonomicity are introduced. Finally, two application examples with representative are presented here: one is the analytical simulation of the power subsystem of a laser satellite; and the other is the application simulation of a FireSat system.(5) Research on implementation of ABMS for AMSSs is carried out to meet the requirement of realizing the agent simulation model system of AMSSs on computer. Firstly, many simulation softwares in aerospace and applications of ABMS are analyzed deeply, the shortages of the ideas for integrating with Matlab/Simulink or STK are discussed and the resources code of ObjectAgent, Swarm, Repast and JADE, is investigated, then a software platform named absimlib is developed independently by extending another software package, simlib, which is rewritten by the author alone too in order to support ABMS for AMSSs. Absimlib, which is supported by object-oriented technology and middle-ware technology, implements the main functions for supporting ABMS for AMSSs, and is extended for using in a distributed environment.(6) By summarizing the methodology of the traditional M&S applications Verification, Validation, and Accreditation (VV&A), important and difficult parts of ABMS applications VV&A are analyzed in detail, followed with the strategy and steps for implementation, and more specialized study on AMSSs ABMS applications VV&A is carried out; and by combining the example in part (4), the simulation of the power subsystem of the laser satellite, the showing of VV&A is realized.(7) Based on System Effectiveness Analysis (SEA), the idea that using ABMS to support system effectiveness evaluation is presented with a new complex system effectiveness evaluation methodology, ABMS Supported SEA (ABMSEA). The methodology solves the limitation that the theoretical foundation of SEA is reductionism, and breaks the bottleneck that it is difficult to model the mission, so it can support effectiveness evaluation for many complex systems, especially for AMSSs. In order to show the implementation of ABMSEA, effectiveness evaluation of the two examples which mentioned in part (4) is carried out.Furthermore, the three examples of AMSSs in this dissertation will provide some reference value for constituting the strategy about the space war in the future.